Doctor Who: Mistaken Identity

Doctor Who Adventures issue 173

The latest issue of Doctor Who Adventures - issue 173 to be precise – features a fancy-pants lenticular cover, plus a new comic strip from me, my first for the Eleventh Doctor and Amy. Strange to think I wrote this long before I saw Matt Smith in action. Mistaken Identity features fungi stink-bombs, a giant law-enforcement mechanoid and a bit of a shock for Amy.

Elsewhere on the web, my Country Tale of a spectral rabbit is to be found on the Countryfile Magazine website and the latest issue – on sale right now – includes another of my tales, this time, The ghosts of Killiecrankie.

The Obverse Book of Ghosts

When I was a stroppy teenager, I often used to go and stay with my Grandparents on Jacob’s Wells Road in the middle of Bristol.  Their flat was part of a wonderfully gothic old building which I believe originally belonged to the Cathedral. To a kid with an over-active imagination, it was a wonderfully spooky setting and after the lights went out at night I would lie in my little rickety z-bed and read well-thumbed library books which I’d picked up earlier in the day. As this is me we’re talking about, the pile of books often contained more than a few Doctor Who novelisations, but I also used to like to scare my socks off with the latest Pan Book of Horror or an old well-thumbed copy of a Fontana Great Book of Ghost Stories.

Many of those stories – and the nightmares they induced – have stayed with me ever since, as has my love of short stories. I am therefore pleased as punch to be editing a new anthology of ghost stories, which is coming out just in time for Halloween – The Obverse Book of Ghosts.

Here’s the official press release:

THE OBVERSE BOOK OF GHOSTS

Edited by Cavan Scott

Published in hardback by Obverse Books in October 2010

Think ghosts just hang around spooky old houses or crumbling graveyards?

Think again.

Obverse Books is proud to announce a new collection of contemporary ghost stories that will unnerve and terrify.
The Obverse Book of Ghosts collects 14 tales of spectral terror, guaranteed to leave you awake at night.

Editor Cavan Scott says: “The Obverse Book of Ghosts follows in the phantasmagorical footsteps of those classic supernatural anthologies of the past, but drags the unquiet dead screaming into the 21^st Century. After all, isn’t it about time we were once again afraid of things that go bump in the night?”

Contributors to this exciting new anthology include:

• George Mann (The Affinity Bridge, Ghosts of Manhattan)
• Paul Magrs (Creator of Iris Wildthyme, The Brenda and Effie Series)
• Tom Fletcher (The Leaping)
• Guy Adams (The World House, Torchwood: The House That Jack Built)
• Rebecca Levene (The Infernal Game series, Tomes of the Dead: Anno Mortis)
• Johnny Mains (Back from the Dead: The Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror Stories)
• Mark Michalowski (Being Human: Chasers, Doctor Who: Shining Darkness)
• Mark Wright  (Doctor Who: Project Destiny, co-producer of Iris Wildthyme audios)
• Nick Walters (Doctor Who: Reckless Engineering, Doctor Who: The Fall of Yquatine)
• Scott Handcock (Doctor Who: The Rising Night, Dark Shadows: The Skin Walkers)
• Stuart Douglas (Iris Wildthyme and the Celestial Omnibus, Miss Wildthyme and Friends Investigate)

The Obverse Book of Ghosts also features short-story debuts from TV scriptwriter Philip Meeks and journalist Nick Peers.

The Long-lost Fairy Island

Been busy hammering words into a keyboard for a new book, hence the lack of posts here, but have just noticed that those nice folks at Countryfile Magazine have popped one of my folklore tales on their website – read what happens if you try to pinch fairy apples in the tale of The Long-lost Fairy Island.

On a related note, you’ve got to love those illustrations by Pete Brewster. More of his work can be found on a selection of my past little ghost stories.

The Sasqwatch

What do you buy the monster lover who has everything – the Sasqwatch of course. Available in four colours synonymous with the Sasquatch – charcoal, bark, evergreen and, er, pink – the watch will apparently ‘mystify and delight onlookers’ and was apparently 20 years in the making.

So there you go – the original bigfoot watch – hang on, you mean there are others?

Through the Dark Curtain

After enjoying The Curse of Rathlaw and The Vampires of Finistere, I tracked down the first in Peter Saxon’s Guardians novels from the ’70s. What a disappointment. Through the Dark Curtain was severly lacking. While there was some nice pulpy moments, such as the girl scared literally witless by an unseen monster, the plot – centering around reincarnation and Queen Bodicia – didn’t really inspire. If I’d read this first, I doubt I would have bothered to pick up the rest.

The boring as hell cover doesn’t help. I prefer the one Curt has over at Groovy Age – even though that one particular one has nothing at all to do with the plot.

Free Newbury and Hobbes stories

My friend and sickingly talented author, George Mann, has popped some free short stories featuring the characters from his Newbury and Hobbes short stories (as introduced in the The Affinity Bridge) online. You can find them over at his blog with a little background info about them here.

The Osiris Ritual by George Mann

On my recently holiday I read the second Newbury and Hobbes adventure The Osiris Ritual which features disappearing women, the curse of a nameless mummy and a steampunk cyborg. Like The Affinity Bridge before it, it’s a real page-turner as Newbury tracks a former, murderous agent and also comes to terms with the growing suspicion that there’s something Hobbes isn’t telling him. George keeps the two leads apart for most of the story, which at first I found disappointing as their relationship was one of the joys of the first book. However, this being Mr Mann, the two storylines start to intertwine and the duo are brought together as their seemingly individual cases start to roll together.

What I love about these books is the fact that the loose ends dangle and flap around throughout the adventures, only to be knitted together into highly satisfying – and usually reasonably gruesome – conclusions. This one has the bonus of invoking both the glories of the Hammer Mummy movies (and yes, I really do mean glories – I love the plodding, bandage clad fellows you know. One of the most underrated of movie monsters) and even a little of the classic Doctor Who Talons of Weng Chiang. Wonderful.

Next on my list to read is George’s pulpy-1920s The Ghost of Manhattan, which promises to channel The Shadow, The Spider and the gun-toting Batman of yesteryear. Oh and a spooky, as-yet unpublished tale of spooky goings-on. I wonder what that’s for…

The Curse of Rathlaw

The Curse of Rathlaw by Peter Saxon

After enjoying Peter Saxon’s The Vampire of Finistere so much I tracked down another in the Guardians series, The Curse of Rathlaw. Another cracking tale with no airs and graces.

In many ways these novels remind me of the old Target Doctor Who novelisations. They’re obviously about the same page count, but it’s also the tone and pace. There’s no attempt in them to be clever, no wish to impress – just to tell a damn good, rip-roaring story.

In this one, a Scottish laird is cursed by a local hermit and contacts the Guardians as he believes that his only son is doomed. Along the way we get a spooky child-wizard, dwarf and a full blown murderous witches coven. I can’t believe that no-one ever picked up the rights to produce movies of these novels. They actually read as novelisations at times and you can imagine the set-pieces one after another. It wouldn’t be too difficult to imagine a series of Amicus films based on these novels – Amicus presents: The Curse of Rathlaw starring Ian Ogilvy as Steven Kane, Jane Seymour as Anne Ashby and Christopher Lee as Cosmo Trayle…

The Leaping

The Leaping by Tom Fletcher

Werewolves often disappoint. They aren’t as smooth as vampires or as gutteral as zombies. They bring with them too many memories of atrocious transformation scenes and a worrying sense that there are no new stories to be told.

And then along comes Tom Fletcher.

His first novel, The Leaping, is unashamedly about werewolves but is one of the freshest takes on lycanthropes I’ve seen in a very long time – ironic really considering that Tom’s gone back to basics, ignoring the clichés of 20th-Century wolf men. As someone who devours folklore, I was over-the-proverbial moon to discover the ‘Lord of the Forest’ hiding in the shadows, the demonic figure who hands over the powers of a shape-shifter for the price of a human soul. This was what made werewolves the stuff of nightmares in the past – not the fact that they were the uncontrollable, bestial side of the human psyche, but that they weren’t tortured Larry Talbot types. They didn’t beat themselves up when they killed, nor did they revel in the bloodlust – they simply didn’t care. They were truly soulless.

These are the wolves that run in The Leaping. They are the ultimate personification of freedom: freedom from social convention, from responsibility, from the daily grind. They live in a fairytale world that literally suspends reality, where the sun never rises on their responsibilities.

The theme of freedom pervades the central characters. Jack wants to be free of his mindless, soul-sapping job in a Manchester call centre while Jennifer, his beautiful, new girlfriend, wants to be free of the trappings of commercialism and the constraints of monogamy. Francis – the B-movie loving neurotic – longs to be free of his morbid fear of cancer. Even though the actual horror doesn’t kick off until well into the second half of the novel, the oppressive nature of their lives is palpable. None of them are particularly likeable and yet all are compelling. The chapters shift alternately between Jack and Francis’ point of views, with Jennifer acting as a catalyst for the story. They feel real, crippled by self-doubt and revelling in trivia, while all desperately wanting more. That’s what keeps you turning the pages, the sense of doom building all the time.

When the action moves to the Lake District you realise that the group of friends have passed the point of no return. After the bleakness of Manchester, the fells of Cumbria are rich in history and mystery. Here is a place where humans have no right to be, the landscape of legends that have been forgotten – stories of terror from a time when fairytale didn’t automatically mean Walt Disney.

When the wolves finally arrive, the pace becomes relentless, frantic and surreal. The freedom they bring is something to fear, and yet is ultimately seductive. As Jack’s world collapses around him, you realise that you are a long, long way from home.

Disturbing but strangely believable, The Leaping successfully combines physiological and body horror, sinking its teeth into your imagination and dragging you into a nihilistic nightmare that forces you to take a long, hard look at yourself: if you were offered the chance to be truly free, would you take it, no-matter what the cost?

The Vampires of Finistere

The Vampires of Finistere by Peter Saxon

Inspired by The Groovy Age of Horror a couple of years ago I tracked down a battered 1972 old copy of The Vampires of Finistere, originally published in 1970 by ‘Peter Saxon’ (who in fact was a pen-name that a myriad of pulpy authors used in the 60′s & 70′s).

What a guilty pleasure this yellowing-masterpiece was. The blurb from the back gives you an idea of what you should expect in it’s slim 190 pages;

Vampirism, Witchcraft, Black Magic, Voodoo, Sorcery… All the nightmare shapes of Evil – with only The Guardians aroused, aware and able to fight the Dark Powers on their own ground! A missing girl tourist, an archaic ritual in a town that Time forgot and a legend of a sunken city draw The Guardians into their most desperate exploit … and a cataclysmic victory!

In fact that gives you a much better idea of what the story involves rather than that awful sub-conan muscled monstrosity of a cover. Not only is it appalling it has no bearing on the tale whatsoever. I must prefer the Jeff Jones version on the Groovy Age of Horror site.

But enough about the cover, what about the story itself. Well if it had been written three years later I would have said that the author had just seen the Wicker Man as Vampires of Finistere has a lone investigator travelling to a community cut off from the outside world by both water and their pagan beliefs. There’s even a fuedal lord who, er, lords it over the village in a Christopher Lee manner. But of course none of this is intentional and to be honest doesn’t do the novel any harm.

So we get Steven Kane, an heroic supernatural James Bondish-style action hero and member of the Guardian – a crack team of ghost hunters and demon fighters – who tries to track down a welsh girl lost in the midst of a pagan ritual, facing of stranger-hating locals and taking a dip with a half-siren, half-vampire were-shark in the process. Yes, I’ll say that again, a were-shark – Genius!

Captain Kirk wants to make love to the mountain